Over 100 jobs expected from mine development. (Timmins and Cochrane).

Early exploration work began last month to develop a potential nickel mine at Falconbridge's Montcalm site near Timmins.

Dan Gignac, vice-president and general manager of Falconbridge's Kidd Mining Division, says the project, which sits 70 kilometres west of Timmins, is currently being set up.

With an initial exploration investment of $13 million, the project is in the very early stages of grassroots exploration, Gignac says.

"This phase of the project is just an underground evaluation and exploration process." Gignac says. "We're going to do some diamond drilling and bulk sampling to tickle the ore body and see how it behaves."

Should the area be proven, the project will create about 150 full-time jobs.

"It's in the early stages yet," says Gignac. "We've got 40 to 50 contractors working on this until January, and then we complete the feasibility study. If we get approval to go ahead with the next phase, then we'll have 150 new jobs for the next four or five years.

"We figure if we're successful with this next phase we'll have production go ahead by the end of 2002."

The Montcalm deposit was discovered in the mid-1970s, but two major companies gave up on the project due to the low grade of nickel in the ore body and absence of a nearby smelter.

Last year, Falconbridge acquired 50 per cent of the property from Outokumpu Group before announcing in May they had signed a $14-million deal for the entire property.

The company believes the $75-million project, with million tonnes of reserve, has a mine life of five to seven years depending on metal prices.

"Since it's a relatively low-grade nickel ore body, one of the reasons why we went with the contractor (route) is you can turn it on and off basically at the fluctuating whim of metal prices," Gignac says.

Regional companies stand to benefit from the project. Mining contractor J. S. Redpath Ltd. and Northwest Transport have been chosen as the preferred suppliers.

"They're the contractor of choice that we have aligned ourselves with to get this Montcalm thing up and running," says Gignac.

Bruce Dunlop, general manager of J. S. Redpath's Timmins division, expects the project to create about 100 new positions with his company. The contractors will de-water the existing ramp and drive a new ramp this fall. They will also extract a 70,000-tonne bulk sample to be processed at Falconbridge's Strathcona mill in Sudbury. Should the project proceed, Montcalm would be a ramp-access mine with processing done at the Kidd metallurgical site in Timmins, leaving no tailings at the mine.